Carter says Bush is failing on key issues

Former president says current administration is caving in to conservatives and derides Star Wars plan as 'technologically ridiculous'

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Now Bush rejects germ warfare treaty

Americans impressed by low-key Laura Bush

Leading article: President Bush's arrogant negotiating style is all take and no give

President Bush received a broadside from one of his predecessors in the White House yesterday when Jimmy Carter savaged his handling of issues from missile defence to the Middle East.

On the day that Mr Bush dismissed an international germ warfare treaty, the former Democrat President declared himself "disappointed with almost everything he [Mr Bush] has done," accusing him of abandoning his moderate promises and caving in to conservatives across the board.

Mr Carter's remarks, in an interview with a local newspaper in his home state of Georgia, are no surprise in one sense. Since his defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980, the former peanut farmer has carved out a niche as a respected, liberal-minded voice on foreign affairs, often acting as an independent emissary on foreign issues rather than as a representative of US power.

None the less – despite the gradual demise of the old Washington convention that partisanship stopped at the ocean's edge – it is most unusual for a former president to criticise directly the foreign policy of a successor, let alone in the blunt language used by Mr Carter. Moreover, his disquiet is shared by many senior Democrats in Congress, as well as many of America's allies abroad.

Underlying Mr Carter's alarm is a sense that the narrowness of Mr Bush's victory last year obliged him to govern from the centre. "I hoped," he told the Columbus Ledger- Enquirer, "that coming out of an uncertain election, he would reach out to people of diverse views, I thought he would be a moderate leader." Instead the opposite was taking place.

In many ways, the complaints might have come from any of Mr Bush's myriad critics in Europe, exasperated by what they see as Washington's high-handed, unilateral behaviour on a host of issues, from missile defence to the planned permanent international criminal court, to treaties on global warming and small arms – and most lately its dismissal in Geneva yesterday of a pact to ban biological weapons.

Mr Carter urges the current President to reverse course and embrace the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. He calls the Bush administration's cherished missile defence shield "technologically ridiculous", and likely only to increase tensions with Russia. On the Middle East, he accuses Mr Bush of being too soft on Israel and its settlements on the West Bank, noting pointedly: "George Snr [the President's father] took a strong position on that issue, and so did I."

Just like many European allies, Mr Carter worries that policy making has fallen into the hands of conservatives, led by Dick Cheney, the Vice- President, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary. Moderates such as Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, he says, have been "frozen out of the decision-making process".

So far, though, criticism has been ignored. Instead, a weary routine has emerged. No, the Bush administration says, we cannot accept this or that treaty, because it is unworkable and unfairly hostile to American interests. But, aides then insist, Washington does take the problem seriously and will formulate its own proposals.

On the foreign policy front, the strategy is to finesse matters by promising to "consult" anxious allies. But among many allies – even the normally steadfast Britain – suspicion is hardening that for Mr Bush, consultation signifies little more than polite diplomatic chatter about something on which he and his conservative advisers have long since made up their minds.

Concrete alternative suggestions to any treaty America has chosen to shun never seem to emerge. Rather, the calculation in the White House is that the American public's attention span is so short that the controversies will fade away. So far at least, the tactic is working. For instance, global warming – whatever the hullabaloo in the rest of the world – simply does not resonate as an issue here as elsewhere. Mr Carter (and doubtless Bill Clinton, so-far silent but who signed many of the treaties his successor is busily repudiating) may be dismayed by what is happening, but to small avail.

How America goes it alone

United Nations

The United States fears undermining of its sovereignty by the 189-nation world body. US opposition to plans to curb the illegally trafficking of small arms led to a watered-down global agreement at the end of last week. One of the first acts of the Bush administration was to reject the Kyoto protocol on global warming, which was negotiated under UN auspices. America is also refusing to ratify the statutes of the soon-to-be created international criminal court.

World Trade Organisation

The WTO, which has 141 members, is like a United Nations for international commerce. But Washington's record on disputes lodged with the WTO since its establishment in 1995 is patchy at best. The most dramatic example of the US failure to abide by WTO rulings was in 1999, when Washington imposed trade sanctions against Europe in a row over bananas, after failing to win WTO backing for its demand that the EU drop tariffs on large-scale banana exports from Central America.

International Court of Justice

The US administration has been in open conflict with the world court since the 1980s, when it refused to accept a suit filed by Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista government accusing America of actively supporting Contra rebels. The court awarded Nicaragua damages, estimated to be as large as $17bn. The US extended its rejection to include lawsuits on Central America and later for any and all disputes.